Thursday begins with the Centre’s promise that lockdown curbs will be significantly reduced next week, allowing stranded migrant workers to go home.
In financial news, investors are pulling out Rs 9,000 crore of credit risk funds in the aftermath of the Franklin Templeton debacle.
The Times Of India’s lead is the Home Ministry’s directive that migrants can go back home. The paper reports, “In a major relief for migrant workers and other people, like students and tourists, stranded for the past five weeks due to the nationwide lockdown, the home ministry on Wednesday allowed their inter-state movement by road in accordance with protocols to be worked out by states.”
It adds, “The Centre indicated a significant easing of curbs in ‘orange’ and ‘green’ areas post-May 3, with measures to increase economic activity and restore normal life.”
With the good news comes the bad for Delhi: “Samples pending for tests in city up 7 times in 1 mth”. The number of samples pending for tests has gone from 470 on April 1 to 3,295 as on April 29, says TOI. Officials say “this delay is causing serious problems in identifying positive cases, tracing their contacts…”
And, all central government employees on alert: “Aarogya Setu ‘OK’ must for central govt staffers”. TOI writes that all central government employees must immediately download Aarogya Setu App on their mobile phones and “confirm their status as ‘safe’ or ‘low-risk’ before setting off for their work place”.
The one positive fallout of the coronavirus is there for all to see in the photograph of the mountains — “SAHARANPUR WAKES UP TO HIMALAYAS” — for the first time in three decades the snow-capped peaks of Gangotri became visible from UP’s Saharanpur.
The Indian Express notes ‘Warning signs emerge in West Bengal, Bihar, Jharkhand’ in a brief report under the lead. According to a recent finding by Chennai-based Institute of Mathematical Sciences (IMSc), these states could be the next areas of concern — “though the three states had a combined caseload of less than 1,200 on April 29,…[they] had the highest rate reproduction..’’ That is the number of people on an average infected by an already infected person.
And here’s an unusual report from Russia on the lockdown — ‘Russia under lockdown, India’ manned space mission trainees confined indoors’— four officers of the Indian Air Force, who were selected to be trained for India’s first manned space flight, are currently sitting ducks in Moscow due to the lockdown, says the report.
In a new investigative series, Express observes how private healthcare is receding into the background of India’s Covid-19 fight. In “Covid fight: Govt system in front…’, it notes that private hospitals “account for two thirds of hospital beds in India, and almost 80 per cent of ventilators..[but] handling just 10 per cent” of 800 critical Covid-19 cases in India.
The paper criticises private hospitals for their absence —“Being sealed in early stages after their staff tested positive, refusing to admit patients” and “suspending services to playing safe”.
Hindustan Times’ front page notes, ‘Haryana tightens border curbs, Delhi supplies hit’. The paper says that Faridabad borders have sealed “putting in place an indiscriminate ban on anyone coming from the national Capital in what led to a significant dip in the supply of fresh produce and hitting the movement of people involved in essential services”.
The hardest hit is the fruit and vegetable supply chain: At Azadpur market, the volume of arrivals dropped by “a third of the average daily arrivals over the past week”.
Talking about restrictions ‘Flights may begin at 30% capacity after lockdown’, reports HT. According to the daily, “…airports will facilitate limited domestic and international scheduled flights in phases and services may initially be capped at 30% capacity to facilitate social distancing, according to the Airport Authority of India’s guidelines for post-lockdown operations”.
In some non-Covid news, ‘BJP, Congress blame each other for protecting wilful defaulters’. HT reports, “Top leaders in the BJP camp contended that the central government did not waive loans of wilful defaulters, while the Congress stuck to its guns and alleged that the government’s handling of the issue benefited economic fugitives such as Vijay Mallya, Nirav Modi and Mehul Choksi.”
The Hindu continues with its numbers: ‘India reports 70 deaths, highest in a single day’.
It says, India reported 70 Covid-19 deaths in the past 24 hours bringing the total death toll to 1,008 Wednesday and making it one of 17 countries that had over 1,000 deaths.
While rural distress is a huge worry, Hindu found ‘Only 30 lakh found NREGA work in April’.
This is the lowest in five years, and indicates “an 82% drop from the previous year’s figure of 1.7 crore workers’’, it writes. “Some states had zero workers as on April 29, showing they had not restarted their work sites at all”.
Amid the flailing economy, The New Indian Express notes how “suit-filed defaulters owe a staggering Rs. 5 lakh crore to banks and financial institutions” — 40 per cent of which are wilful defaulters that owe Rs 2 lakh crore, says credit information firm Cibil. The report singles out SBI with the highest number of wilful defaults, followed by Punjab National Bank, Bank of Baroda, Bank of India and IDBI Bank.
And here’s an important judgment: In ‘Neet applies to minority institutions: SC’, the daily notes the Supreme Court’s praising of National Eligibility-cum-Entrance Test as a “regulatory measure that is in the largest national interest”. This was part of the top court’s ruling that the test does not “violate the rights of minorities”, it adds.
The lead in the Mumbai daily, ‘Covid-19 thrives in city’s social divide’ notes that this “rich man’s disease — which arrived on jetliners from some of the most affluent countries and exotic holiday destinations — is fast becoming almost entirely the poor’s burden in Mumbai”.
It says that the positive cases in upscale localities were restricted to those with travel history or having contact with someone with foreign travel history. “But now, a month later, the number of cases from slum pockets across the city have risen exponentially,” says Mirror.
In a brief report, The Tribune notes CBSE officials assertion that board exams for Classes 10 and 12 which have been pending since the start of the pandemic, will not be scrapped. The wheels already seem to be turning as the HRD Ministry directed states to start evaluating the exams already conducted.
In its lead story, Mint notes another domino falls after the collapse of Franklin Templeton debt schemes. “Panicked investors have pulled a staggering ₹9,000 crore out of credit risk funds in just three trading days” since the incident and “assets under management (AUM) of credit risk funds have dropped 19%”, reports the paper. The credit risk fund category is undergoing major stress because its “underlying assets are highly illiquid corporate bonds, many of them sold by companies struggling to keep themselves afloat” during lockdown, adds the report.
The Economic Times notes bankers’ tough negotiations with the government with regards to MSMEs, says the paper’s second lead, `Bankers Want Govt Guarantee..’.
First, they want “a near total government guarantee on all incremental loans” for MSMEs and “also on up to 20% of new asset purchases from non-bank lenders”. What seems to be worsening their frustration is that “the government [is] undecided on how much it can offer as a guarantee”, it adds.
In some saddening news, 40 per cent of Indian restaurants and cloud kitchens will likely shut shop for good “in the absence of a government bailout”, according to the National Restaurant Association of India. Before coronavirus, the industry had a turnover of Rs. 4 lakh crore and employed about 7 million people, the paper regrettably reports.